Everything changed when the third grade attacked.

Okay, I’m being dramatic and just like to channel Avatar: The Last Air Bender at any and every given moment. But the last few weeks have flown by in the slowest way possible – yes, somehow it is true to blink and a month has gone by, but every day feels like a week long.

Take yesterday, for example. The day starts out with the usual chaos of middle schoolers roaming around the library until the bell rings, dropping off books, asking printer questions. I don’t know when I became the printer expert, but apparently if your office is in a room with a printer, you are automatically PTC (printer tech in charge).

That’s all fine all dandy and I don’t mind helping out with printer questions and actually usually can help whoever is having issues. But sometimes, when there’s been twenty questions about the printer interrupting your day/tasks, it can be a bit much. Yesterday might have been one of those days.

And then we have third grade coming in and, much to my dismay, the app that we are going to use to research suddenly doesn’t let the students log in. Teachers all around the globe probably know that sinking feeling that you get when your carefully crafted lesson plan starts to derail and you’re frantically thinking through what you all could do instead….especially when your students can smell blood and the more antsy students are already starting to wiggle out of their seats and play with their bag of ice that they brought to the library (????), and getting generally ready to bolt.

But God is gracious even then – one of the more tech savvy of my kids finds they could just log in from the website instead of the app and in a desperate scramble, we try to get at least four iPads logged in so they could work in groups (ignoring the complaints of “But I wanna use my iPad!”). It’s fine. Sure, some kids forget how to sit in chairs properly and crouch on the desks like they are vultures, but it’s fine. *insert eye twitch*

We’ll just skip over the chaos that is book choosing time as high schoolers come in from lunch and kids are raising their hands right in front of my face to get my attention while five of their classmates chime in around me asking where their particular book is and a high schooler wants help with the printer. And the third grader left their bag of ice melting all over my desk….

It’s fine.

Until 2nd grade comes in right after and proceeds to change their assigned seating so they can sit next to their friends which is exactly why they have assigned seating in the first place. And story time involves socks coming off and legs flying up in the air because again, we’ve forgotten how to sit in a chair….or on the floor, in this case.

And when book choosing time comes, there’s the usual clamor of requests. Yes, we have princess books. Yes, they are still in the same place that they were last week. No, there are no Minecraft books – they are all checked out, would you like me to put a hold on one for you? No? Well, you might not get it without a hold because these are the most popular books in lower elementary. Only one Demon Slayer book checked out at a time….because everyone in this school wants a copy and we have to share, that’s why. Why are we running in the library? Please leave the decorations alone. Is that volume level appropriate for the library? Okay, you all are giving the right answers, so let’s make sure we are doing what we know how to do. Hello, middle schooler, yes, the printer is over there. Yes, you collect your copies there.

And they’re out the door.

I’m also trying to learn Korean with a teacher friend and I glance over and see her waiting for me. Oh, that’s today?

Maybe I look more frazzled than I thought because she even asks, “I think you need rest?”

“I’ll be okay, let’s do this!”

All the Korean promptly leaves my mind and my tongue stumbles over all the phrases that I was nailing last week. We are going over how to say what we do for a living and I keep stuttering over the phrase, “조는 도서관 선생님이에요.” (“I am a library teacher”). I almost have it, when surprise surprise, another student pops in with a printer question. Abandon the lesson, fix the printer, back to the lesson, I slump in my chair and say, “조는 프린터가 선생님이에요.” (“I am a printer teacher”). My friend laughs and says, “Hey, you got the pronunciation right that time too!”

Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

There’s the school bell; it’s time for after school library duty.

I look at my checklist for the day and see with a rising burning pressure that I still haven’t finished up an assignment for a professional development course that I wanted to get done because my weekend is full and I won’t get it done then and I haven’t responded to an email from a vendor wanting to meet and it’s NaNoWriMo month (National Novel Writing Month), which of course I signed up for because I’m insane and I wanted to fit in more time for writing, but I haven’t written a word today and I don’t really have time the rest of the day because it’s Thursday which means it’s Bible study night, which starts almost right after school and I still need to go grocery shopping for Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday and that’ll have to be pushed to tomorrow, but will I have time tomorrow?

“Miss O’Leary, can you print panda pictures for us to color?” A handful of elementary girls ask me.

I cannot handle ONE MORE printer question!!!! I want to yell, but I take a deep breath and give the more measured response of, “We need to not waste paper, so let’s just work on homework or read a book today, okay?”

“What if we use the recycled paper?” One of them points to the pile of unclaimed papers that gathers by the printer at the end of every school day.

“That -” I want to say no, so badly, but they were right, “that is a smart idea. Okay.”

So we put in the recycled paper and pick out a panda and start to print.

“Can you make mine tiny?” One of them chimes in.

“Everyone gets the same panda today because Miss O’Leary has to work and Miss O’Leary can’t work if she’s printing out panda papers!” Maaaaybe my tone got a little away from me at that point.

And the rest of the students in the library are now giving me the side eye.

But success, the kiddos got their papers and skipped off to the corner while I have the last few blissful fifteen minutes of library duty to work on at least my email responses.

Why did I even tell this story? Because as I closed the library, still feeling vaguely frustrated, these sweet little girls brought their colored panda pictures over to me and told me, “We made these for you because we wanted you to know that we’re so glad that you’re our librarian.”

Break my heart and bowl me over with a steamroller.

As we shared in Bible study that night the things that God has done for us over the years/weeks/days and what we’re thankful for, you’d better believe I was crying over those panda pictures.

How sweet of God to send four little girls my way to remind me of the reason that I am here. It’s not the number of tasks I get done – no matter how important they are – I’m here for those kids, with their gazillion questions and printer problems and endless wiggles. The ones who have been such troopers during the last two pandemic years. The ones who still laugh with and encourage their teachers, even when their teachers get short with them. And when one of them asked me if I had kids, I felt like saying that I have simultaneously none and 200+ of them. Because they are each precious to me and more importantly, they are precious to God and I’m so glad I get to be with them again.

What a delight to focus on as Thanksgiving week approaches. Praise God from whom all the quirky, strange, hilarious, amazing blessings flow!

Check out the podcast episode of this post here on Spotify.